LEA!

10/16/14

Today was LEA.  It was my first time there and I had a blast while learning tons of new information.  Michael, April, and I drove down there early that morning.  I got to see another beautiful sunrise here in Rochester which was cool.  We got there and I saw some familiar faces, both from CSP, as well as people I have gotten to know through my different experiences on internship thus far.  The keynote speaker was Alan November.  He talked about using Google and how things like this are ways for our students to begin to teach themselves and help us to learn together.

After that I went to my first session.  My first one was on creative writing and it was lead by none other than Dr. Burkhart.  It had been a awhile since I had seen him and even longer since I had been in one of his classes.  It was very interesting.  I got some great books to add to my list as well as some ideas as to how to use creative writing for students.  Most of it was directed towards teachers however I was able to bring away some stuff that I could use in my area of work as well.

My second session was with Andrew Boll.  It was about developing Christian character through fantasy fiction.  This is actually something Michael and I have been talking about extensively.  Mainly for me to get a footing as to how I should approach it as I move into my church worker career.  This session was extremely helpful and he walked us through the idea of the hero's journey and how it looked like Jesus' journey and also taught very good Christian characteristics.  I also purchased all three of his books and look forward to reading them.

My final session was with Joel and it was about making meaningful devotions and worship experiences.  I met Joel at Kindle and it was neat to see him again and actually get a chance to learn from his time as a DCE.  He gave us some good ways in which to develop this sorts of things.  I liked the example he showed us that he uses at his congregation.  Overall this was a great experience and I learned quite a bit to take with me back to Redeemer as well as onto my future call(s).

Today I learned that LEW is really awesome.  I saw a good number of people I knew.  It was nice to connect and reconnect.  Also my classes were really instructive and able to glean quit a bit from them.